Kimi ‘not here just to drive around’

Kimi Raikkonen is refusing to rule himself out of this season’s title race despite facing a first half of the campaign without a race victory…

Kimi Raikkonen is refusing to rule himself out of this season’s title race despite facing a first half of the campaign without a race victory.

Making his return to Formula One this season, Raikkonen has proven he’s lost none of the pace or talent that carried him to the World title with Ferrari back in 2007.

Despite being out of the sport for two years, Raikkonen already has three podium finishes and two fastest race laps to his name.

Heading into Sunday’s German GP, the tenth race in a 20-race calendar, Raikkonen has bagged 83 points, putting him fifth in the standings, 46 points behind Championship leader Fernando Alonso.

Asked whether he believes he can fight for this year’s title, the Lotus driver told Autosport: “I have no reason to say I wouldn’t try.

“I’m not here just to drive around. But I have no idea if we’re going to be up there in the end or not.

“We’ll try to give ourselves a chance and do as well as we can. We know that we have to improve on certain things.

“We’re still not 100 per cent happy with how things have gone on all the weekends, but I would say that’s what I was expecting. You don’t think that everything will be perfect.

“It’s still quite early days in the season and we are still up there. You can’t rule anything out.”

The Finn, though, is confident his team has the ability to maintain their challenge near the front of the pack.

“I think overall we’ve been pretty strong everywhere. We just have to work and improve.

If we do everything 100 percent right we can improve the car at the same rate as the others and then we should have a chance.”